Hello!
I’m Aarushi, a new PhD student co-supervised by Øystein Opedal and Magne Friberg. I’ll be working with Viscaria vulgaris, a type of wildflower that is visited by several species of insect pollinators. Over the next few years, I hope to understand whether there is adaptation between the flowering populations and the local pollinator communities. This will involve comparing floral and insect trait measurements, while also collecting data about how often different pollinators visit, and how efficient they are at depositing pollen. Eventually, we will try to estimate the contribution of each pollinator taxa to the net selection gradient on the plant population, by using different measures of plant fitness.
I also did my Master’s in Lund, and a master’s project with Magne Friberg. I worked with Italian Arabis alpina populations which differed in floral scent. I tried to estimate whether the local pollinators had a preference for the local scent compared to a foreign scent, and also tried to see if they were morphologically adapted to the flowering population. We found some evidence for this, but it was most exciting to conduct unique ‘scape-translocation’ experiments to test these hypotheses. Of course, being in Italy was an added bonus! I enjoyed every part of my project so much that I decided to continue working on similar themes for my PhD. I am especially excited to be back on the third floor, around familiar faces again!
Lately, I’ve been interested in science communication, and using art and storytelling to convey scientific research. I hope to find ways to practice this over the next few years. I also like to do crafts (especially making jewellery), cook and read fiction in my free time. And I’ve been getting into board games over the past year, so if you know any groups who play regularly, please let me know! I hope I’ll get to know more of you over the next few years. I’m almost always happy to chat 🙂
